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Okay...but on /r/personalfinance, people show up all the time with a litany of complaints and a litany of awful, awful budget mistakes they have no interest in

Okay...but on /r/personalfinance, people show up all the time with a litany of complaints and a litany of awful, awful budget mistakes they have no interest in fixing. 120/month cellphone, 400/month doordash, Dodge Charger with a 600/month note. And so on. each case was a frustrating puzzle What puzzled you? The necessities should never be a puzzle. If the rent, the food, the utilities, the insurance, and the day care add up to less than the income, then everything else could be saved if you dispense with luxuries. If the necessities are more than the income, you either have to cut back on something important or work a second job. That's not fun, but it's also no puzzle.

foepys 5y ago
I'd argue that the people posting anonymously on the internet are not the same people who mustered up the courage to seek help in person and talk face to face, sometimes (often?) with children in tow.
LocalPCGuy 5y ago
Have you looked at the psychology of decision making when poor and struggling? It might open your eyes as to why people don't make the optimal choices (financially or others). And a lot of people literally do not know any better. They've never had someone teach them how to manage money and potentially had bad role models growing up. So its easy for you to say, with the knowledge it seems like you have, this is what you need to do. It's much harder to put into practice. Especially when you consider there are many folks that do manage their money well, don't splurge on non-essentials, work multiple jobs and still cannot make ends meet.
- gruez 5y ago
  > Have you looked at the psychology of decision making when poor and struggling? It might open your eyes as to why people don't make the optimal choices (financially or others). Where does "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling" stop and personal responsibility begin? Can every suboptimal decision be excused because of "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling"?
  - baq 5y ago
    You’ve got some reading up to do on behavioral economics. Humans (real ones, not model economic actors) can’t and don’t make optimal decisions except in very special circumstances.
    - gruez 5y ago
      That doesn't answer my question at all.
      - baq 5y ago
        Of course. Never meant to, just pointed to a direction that you seem to be unaware of.
        gruez 5y ago
        >Never meant to, just pointed to a direction that you seem to be unaware of. What gave you that impression? In my initial comment I acknowledged the concept of excusing suboptimal decision making due to "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling". How is that different than what you're saying?
        baq 5y ago
        You call it 'excusing'.
        gruez 5y ago
        That seems like the right characterization to me? Definition from wiktionary: >3. (transitive) To provide an excuse for; to explain, with the aim of alleviating guilt or negative judgement. Earlier in the thread there was definitely a tone of negative judgement. ie. "people show up all the time with a litany of complaints and a litany of awful, awful budget mistakes they have no interest in fixing"
- Viliam1234 5y ago
  > They've never had someone teach them how to manage money This. If you don't know how money works, most people who offer advice are just trying to scam you. But not taking any advice is also not helpful. If I knew how to invest in index funds 20 years ago, who knows, I might have already been halfway to retirement. Before I had kids, I was able to save a large part of my salary. But everything I did with the money -- following the advice of people pretending to be experts -- only made the money disappear. If someone has a friendly person who spends a day or two helping them set up the system, so that all they need to do later is send extra money to a specific account once in a while, it can change their future dramatically. But many people do not have such friend.
avianlyric 5y ago
And what if they already have a second and third job, have already started cutting back necessities. What do they do then? Starve?
- godfreyantonell 5y ago
  Yes.
- techrat 5y ago
  Pretty much. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-... About 70% of those receiving federal aid were already working full time.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
c22 5y ago
My cell phone bill (for my family of 4) would be around $120/month, but it's discounted down to around $80 because of my employer. There's no note on our car cause we could afford to just buy it with cash. We never spend money on doordash because we have plenty of time to go shopping and make our own meals. For the most part we have rent (mortgage), food, utilities, insurance, and day care (have you looked into the cost of this?) all locked up and well-budgeted, but sometimes someone leaves the door open or the hose on too long and we have an unexpectedly high utility bill. One time my wife left an entire bag of groceries behind the car and accidentally backed over it. When COVID hit and my dad was simultaneously suffering from a suppressed immune system we had to stop leaving the kids with my parents and up our daycare expenditures quite a bit. These sorts of problems aren't really problems for us, we can just cover the added expense out of our "emergency savings" bucket, but if two emergencies happen back-to-back sometimes that bucket gets depleted and we have to draw from "vacation savings" instead. Fortunately we're able to fill these buckets with hundreds of excess dollars a month, so they are usually adequate. I could see it being problematic if the buckets filled at a much slower rate.
- c22 5y ago
  Here's another way to look at it, we're grossing around $100k a year and only managing to save about $25k of it. I don't understand how a family that makes $60k a year (about 3 full time minimum wage jobs) manages at all. Our lifestyle is not opulent.
  - godfreyantonell 5y ago
    In this country you are either rich or some flavor of poor. Simplistic as it sounds, I won’t be able to “exhale” until I am grossing at least $400k annually. I am far from it, and I feel it. I can hardly save at the moment. Health care is a big bite as well. Even w an employer plan. Still have to come up w a $3500 deductible before costs are shared. Not whining. Just saying that even though I have a decent monthly check, I am poor.
  - nightski 5y ago
    That is entirely dependent on where you live. Plenty of people live quite well on 60k (which is the median household income in the U.S.). Obviously not in San Francisco or New York.
pavlov 5y ago
This person did the hard work of sitting down face-to-face with people in financial distress and discovered that helping them is not as easy as it seems when looking down from an upper middle class perch. Then you come in and argue that their experience can’t be true because you read something on Reddit. What an absurd and rude display of privilege.
StanislavPetrov 5y ago
> If the necessities are more than the income, you either have to cut back on something important or work a second job. If it is a necessity, by definition it cannot be cut back, unless you want to starve to death or live under a bridge.
techrat 5y ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-... >McDonald’s was among the top five employers of Medicaid enrollees in five of six states and SNAP recipients in eight of nine states. >Other notable companies with a large number of employees on federal aid include Amazon, Kroger, Dollar General, and other food service and retail giants. >About 70% of the 21 million federal aid beneficiaries worked full time, the report found. " It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." - FDR TLDR: Minimum wage was never intended to be less than a living wage. If you're working full time and can't afford food, why should the company get away with forcing taxpayers to make up the difference? Your oversimplification of the issue glosses (intentionally?) over the real issue. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/minimum-wage-workers-cannot-afford-rent-in-any-us-state.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/minimum-wage-workers-cannot-... >Full-time minimum wage workers cannot afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the U.S. and cannot afford a one-bedroom rental in 95% of U.S. counties, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual “Out of Reach” report. >In fact, the average minimum wage worker in the U.S. would need to work almost 97 hours per week to afford a fair market rate two-bedroom and 79 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom, NLIHC calculates. That’s well over two full-time jobs just to be able to afford a two-bedroom rental. But yes, go on about how thse people need to 'dispense with luxuries' and 'work a second job.'

foepys 5y ago

I'd argue that the people posting anonymously on the internet are not the same people who mustered up the courage to seek help in person and talk face to face, sometimes (often?) with children in tow.

LocalPCGuy 5y ago

Have you looked at the psychology of decision making when poor and struggling? It might open your eyes as to why people don't make the optimal choices (financially or others). And a lot of people literally do not know any better. They've never had someone teach them how to manage money and potentially had bad role models growing up. So its easy for you to say, with the knowledge it seems like you have, this is what you need to do. It's much harder to put into practice. Especially when you consider there are many folks that do manage their money well, don't splurge on non-essentials, work multiple jobs and still cannot make ends meet.

gruez 5y ago
> Have you looked at the psychology of decision making when poor and struggling? It might open your eyes as to why people don't make the optimal choices (financially or others). Where does "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling" stop and personal responsibility begin? Can every suboptimal decision be excused because of "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling"?
- baq 5y ago
  You’ve got some reading up to do on behavioral economics. Humans (real ones, not model economic actors) can’t and don’t make optimal decisions except in very special circumstances.
  - gruez 5y ago
    That doesn't answer my question at all.
    - baq 5y ago
      Of course. Never meant to, just pointed to a direction that you seem to be unaware of.
      - gruez 5y ago
        >Never meant to, just pointed to a direction that you seem to be unaware of. What gave you that impression? In my initial comment I acknowledged the concept of excusing suboptimal decision making due to "psychology of decision making when poor and struggling". How is that different than what you're saying?
        baq 5y ago
        You call it 'excusing'.
        gruez 5y ago
        That seems like the right characterization to me? Definition from wiktionary: >3. (transitive) To provide an excuse for; to explain, with the aim of alleviating guilt or negative judgement. Earlier in the thread there was definitely a tone of negative judgement. ie. "people show up all the time with a litany of complaints and a litany of awful, awful budget mistakes they have no interest in fixing"
Viliam1234 5y ago
> They've never had someone teach them how to manage money This. If you don't know how money works, most people who offer advice are just trying to scam you. But not taking any advice is also not helpful. If I knew how to invest in index funds 20 years ago, who knows, I might have already been halfway to retirement. Before I had kids, I was able to save a large part of my salary. But everything I did with the money -- following the advice of people pretending to be experts -- only made the money disappear. If someone has a friendly person who spends a day or two helping them set up the system, so that all they need to do later is send extra money to a specific account once in a while, it can change their future dramatically. But many people do not have such friend.

avianlyric 5y ago

And what if they already have a second and third job, have already started cutting back necessities. What do they do then? Starve?

godfreyantonell 5y ago
Yes.
techrat 5y ago
Pretty much. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-... About 70% of those receiving federal aid were already working full time.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

c22 5y ago

My cell phone bill (for my family of 4) would be around $120/month, but it's discounted down to around $80 because of my employer. There's no note on our car cause we could afford to just buy it with cash. We never spend money on doordash because we have plenty of time to go shopping and make our own meals. For the most part we have rent (mortgage), food, utilities, insurance, and day care (have you looked into the cost of this?) all locked up and well-budgeted, but sometimes someone leaves the door open or the hose on too long and we have an unexpectedly high utility bill. One time my wife left an entire bag of groceries behind the car and accidentally backed over it. When COVID hit and my dad was simultaneously suffering from a suppressed immune system we had to stop leaving the kids with my parents and up our daycare expenditures quite a bit. These sorts of problems aren't really problems for us, we can just cover the added expense out of our "emergency savings" bucket, but if two emergencies happen back-to-back sometimes that bucket gets depleted and we have to draw from "vacation savings" instead. Fortunately we're able to fill these buckets with hundreds of excess dollars a month, so they are usually adequate. I could see it being problematic if the buckets filled at a much slower rate.

c22 5y ago
Here's another way to look at it, we're grossing around $100k a year and only managing to save about $25k of it. I don't understand how a family that makes $60k a year (about 3 full time minimum wage jobs) manages at all. Our lifestyle is not opulent.
- godfreyantonell 5y ago
  In this country you are either rich or some flavor of poor. Simplistic as it sounds, I won’t be able to “exhale” until I am grossing at least $400k annually. I am far from it, and I feel it. I can hardly save at the moment. Health care is a big bite as well. Even w an employer plan. Still have to come up w a $3500 deductible before costs are shared. Not whining. Just saying that even though I have a decent monthly check, I am poor.
- nightski 5y ago
  That is entirely dependent on where you live. Plenty of people live quite well on 60k (which is the median household income in the U.S.). Obviously not in San Francisco or New York.

pavlov 5y ago

This person did the hard work of sitting down face-to-face with people in financial distress and discovered that helping them is not as easy as it seems when looking down from an upper middle class perch. Then you come in and argue that their experience can’t be true because you read something on Reddit. What an absurd and rude display of privilege.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago

> If the necessities are more than the income, you either have to cut back on something important or work a second job. If it is a necessity, by definition it cannot be cut back, unless you want to starve to death or live under a bridge.

techrat 5y ago

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-... >McDonald’s was among the top five employers of Medicaid enrollees in five of six states and SNAP recipients in eight of nine states. >Other notable companies with a large number of employees on federal aid include Amazon, Kroger, Dollar General, and other food service and retail giants. >About 70% of the 21 million federal aid beneficiaries worked full time, the report found. " It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." - FDR TLDR: Minimum wage was never intended to be less than a living wage. If you're working full time and can't afford food, why should the company get away with forcing taxpayers to make up the difference? Your oversimplification of the issue glosses (intentionally?) over the real issue. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/minimum-wage-workers-cannot-afford-rent-in-any-us-state.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/minimum-wage-workers-cannot-... >Full-time minimum wage workers cannot afford a two-bedroom rental anywhere in the U.S. and cannot afford a one-bedroom rental in 95% of U.S. counties, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual “Out of Reach” report. >In fact, the average minimum wage worker in the U.S. would need to work almost 97 hours per week to afford a fair market rate two-bedroom and 79 hours per week to afford a one-bedroom, NLIHC calculates. That’s well over two full-time jobs just to be able to afford a two-bedroom rental. But yes, go on about how thse people need to 'dispense with luxuries' and 'work a second job.'